


The Walls are Thinner than You Think

by dwarrowdams



Series: Rogues Do It From Behind [2]
Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Implied Sexual Content, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-17
Updated: 2015-10-17
Packaged: 2018-04-26 18:25:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5015362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dwarrowdams/pseuds/dwarrowdams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anora has trouble sleeping, thanks to the nighttime antics of a Warden and his Antivan assassin lover.  Set just before the Landsmeet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Frustration

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr under the username dwarrowdams. Inspired by a) my observation that Anora's room in Arl Eamon's Denerim estate is right next to the Warden's and b) the fact that Gilan and Zevran have no shame.

For the fourth night in a row, Anora lay awake, staring at the ceiling and cursing the Warden’s name.  She’d tried to block it out, but nothing she did could suppress the soft groans of pleasure that carried across the wall and into her room.  She had no desire to hear what the youngest Cousland boy did with his lover this late at night, but they were so loud that it was impossible for her not to hear.

To say that she was annoyed would have been an understatement.

“That’s  _it_!” she snapped, arising and grabbing her dressing robe from beside her bed.  

One night she could understand—perhaps two, but four in a row was utterly ridiculous and terribly inconsiderate.  She’d been expecting Gilan to conduct himself with a little more tact—he was a Cousland after all—but clearly, he had no interest in preserving the image of decency.

She finally understood why Eleanor had always spoken of her youngest son with some degree of exasperation.  Anora remembered how the teyrna had sighed heavily and rolled her eyes whenever she spoke of Gilan’s refusal to even consider courting someone.  At the time, Anora had assumed that it was a mark of the younger Cousland boy’s independence: she had been under the impression that he wanted to make a name for himself in some other way before settling down and taking a wife.

Clearly, she had been mistaken.  From their limited interactions, she could tell that he was an independent man who fought with great skill, but he was terribly flighty, his attention always darting from one thing to the next.  In fact, one of the only things that seemed to hold his attention was that Antivan elf who kept him company at night.  From what she could tell, the two men seemed to care about one another deeply but although she had nothing against their relationship itself, she couldn’t bring herself to think kindly of them now that they’d disrupted her sleep again.

She squared her shoulders as she stood before Gilan’s door, knocking firmly on it thrice in hopes that Gilan would hear her.  Although she wanted him to know just how disrupting he was, she was not so impatient—or foolish—as to interrupt whatever was happening on the other side of the door.

Just as she raised her fist to knock a fourth time, the door opened, revealing Gilan with a lazy smirk on his face, naked save for the blanket gathered around his waist.  “Hey,” he said, smirk still in place.  “You’re up awfully late.”

She arched an eyebrow at him, staring him dead in the eye as she said, “Believe me, I’d rather be asleep, but you and your…that elf are making that nearly impossible.”

“Whoops,” Gilan muttered.  “Didn’t think it’d be an issue.  I figured the walls would block out some of the noise.”

“Clearly, you figured incorrectly,” Anora snapped.  “Quite a feat, especially since your bed is as far away from mine as it can get.”

Gilan bit his lip, glancing down for a moment.  “We…weren’t exactly on the bed,” he replied, the damned smirk still on his face.

Anora bit back an exasperated sigh.  “Then where were…no, never mind.  I’d rather not know.  But please, could the two of you keep it down?”

“We’ll do our best,” Gilan said, lazy half-smile still intact.

“You’ll  _do your best_?” Anora snapped.  “Believe me, there is no reason for you to be that loud.”

He chuckled.  “Clearly you’ve never met Zevran,” he replied.

Anora sighed in exasperation.  She had expected him to react with some small amount of shame, but clearly, he was even more unscrupulous than she’d originally thought.  “And clearly you’ve never thought of anything but your own pleasure,” she snapped.

Gilan frowned a bit.  “That’s not exactly fair,” he said.  “I think a lot about Zevran’s pleasure.”

Anora stared at him in shock for a moment.  “You know what I mean,” she said.  “The two of you are being terribly inconsiderate.”

He shrugged.  “Well, you can’t blame us,” he said.  “Until now, we didn’t know that we were disrupting anything.”

It took most of Anora’s self-control not to smack him upside the head.  Here she was, trying to talk with him like a civilized adult, and yet he stood before her, practically naked, treating the whole matter as though it were a joke.  She knew that slapping him would not give her what she needed, so she did what she did best.

She stared at him.

Anora had watched men crumble under that stare.  She had reduced men twice her age to meek little servants ready to do her bidding with that stare.  She had watched the grin slide off her own husband’s face, replaced by a look of shame.  That stare was what had made her such an effective queen and she knew it.

And yet Gilan stood before her, still as relaxed as ever.  “All right,” he said.  “You’ve made your point.  I apologized.  And if you don’t mind, there’s a terribly handsome elf sitting on the floor of my room and I’d hate to keep him waiting for any longer.”

“Very well,” Anora said, barely restraining her frustration as she turned back towards her own room.  She knew that she hadn’t gotten through to him, but it was not worth any more effort.  Perhaps sleeping with her head beneath the pillow would block out the noise.

“Night, Anora,” she heard him call after her.  “Sleep well.”

She chose to ignore the light mockery in his tone as she returned to her room, praying that she could snatch a few hours of sleep before the sun rose.


	2. Resolution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After waking up yet again from Gilan and Zevran, Anora gets a little help from a friendly dwarf Warden.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr under the username dwarrowdams.

Four nights had been ridiculous.

Five was unacceptable.

Anora had tried to block out the noise in every way possible.  She’d shoved cotton in her ears, buried her head under the pillow, and pulled the covers over her head, but she could  _still_  hear them.  She had never believed that it was possible for two people to make so much noise and yet here she was, awake far too late, pounding on Gilan’s door in hopes that he would answer—or at least take the hint and quiet down.

“Oh,  _honestly_ ,” she hissed as she pounded on the door, awaiting some sort of response.

A few moments later, a blond elf appeared at the door, a blanket wrapped around his waist.  His blond hair was mussed and he wore a smirk similar to Gilan’s, but with a little more guile.  “Zevran, I take it?” Anora said bitterly.

The elf grinned.  “My reputation precedes me, it seems,” he replied.

“It certainly does,” she said, her tone icy.  “Apparently, I did not make myself clear enough last night.  I’m not sure how you two manage to make so much noise, but it needs to stop.  Immediately.”

Zevran furrowed his brow.  “No one else has spoken to us the entire time we’ve been here, so it cannot be as bad as you say,” he said.

“Don’t you  _dare_  tell me that,” she hissed.  “I’ve barely slept all week.”

Zevran raised an eyebrow, grinning playfully at her.  “Well, if you cannot sleep, perhaps you’d like to join us?” he suggested.

Anora’s eyes widened.  “But you—” she began.

“Oh, I’m sure that Gilan would not mind the extra company,” he said.  “He’s quite open-minded about such things.”

Anora stared at Zevran, too shocked to react properly.  She was debating whether she should attempt further communication or simply storm off in disgust when she heard someone else speak.

“What exactly is going on here?”

Anora turned to see the other Warden—Tirzah, a dwarf—standing behind her.  She looked much younger with her red hair falling in loose curls down her back, but still managed to command an air of authority that women twice her age often lacked.  “Thank the Maker you’re here,” Anora said.  “Maybe you can talk some sense into these two.”

“I doubt it,” Tirzah replied.  “They haven’t listened to me for the past few months; I can’t imagine why they’d start now.”

“But if they were able to wake you up—” Anora began.

“They didn’t, actually,” Tirzah said.  “I was already awake.  But I could hear them—not that it’s surprising after the past few months, but no matter.”

“Impressive that you could hear us up a flight of stairs and through a closed door, hmm?” Zevran said.

Tirzah raised an eyebrow at him.  “What’s impressive is the fact that you are, in fact, making that much noise.  Now get Gil,” she told him. “I want to talk with him.”

“Very well,” Zevran said as he turned and slipped back into the room.

“Is he actually more reasonable than Zevran?” Anora asked.

“Not really,” Tirzah said.  “But he’s not quite so brazen, which is something.”

“It certainly is, “Anora said wearily.  “May I ask how you put up with them for all these months?”

“Patience,” Tirzah said.  “That and the fact that they stuck beside me when I doubted that anyone would.”

Anora was about to inquire further when Gilan emerged at the door, hair rumpled with a sheet draped loosely about his hips.  “Oh,” he said upon seeing Anora.  “Were we being loud again?”

Anora arched an eyebrow at him.  “Do I honestly need to answer that?” she asked.  “Your fellow Warden came down from upstairs to tell you to be quiet.”

Gilan grinned as he peeped around Anora to see Tirzah.  “Tirzah!” he exclaimed.  “What are you doing up so late?”

Tirzah remained nonplussed by his question—and by the fact that he was practically naked.  “Probably the same thing you are,” she said, “but at a respectable volume.”

“She could hear you  _upstairs_ ,” Anora said.  “If you want proof of how inconsiderate you’re being, I can offer you nothing better than that.”

“Well,” Gilan said, “it seems we’ve reached an impasse.”

“Not exactly,” Tirzah said.  “Anora, would you be all right with switching rooms?  You might be able to hear them, but not as clearly as you could here.”

“That would be perfect,” Anora replied.  “Thank you.”

“Good,” said Tirzah.  “I just need to wake up Alistair and we’ll be out of your way.”

Anora opened her mouth, ready to comment on the fact that the two of them were sharing a bed, but thought better of it.  She’d rather not risk the possibility of some decent sleep for an inquiry that might be deemed inappropriate.

“So we’re set?” Gilan said.  “Can we all get back to what we were doing?”

“Go ahead,” Tirzah said.  Anora thought she glimpsed a tired half-smile across the woman’s face.   How she still had patience with those two after months of traveling together, Anora would never know.  Still, she was grateful that someone had been able to alleviate the situation.

Tirzah tiptoed back towards the staircase.  “I’ll just be a minute,” she promised.

As soon as the dwarf was out of sight, Anora leaned against the wall, closing her eyes.  She could still hear Gilan and Zevran through the wall, but she was too tired to care, so tired that even the wall felt like the most luxurious bed.  No one would notice if she relaxed just for a minute…

“Anora?” Tirzah called.

Anora opened her eyes and stood up straight, blinking a few times to clear her head of the half-waking haze into which she’d fallen.  If Tirzah had seen her leaning against the wall half-asleep, she was at least polite enough not to say anything.  “Yes?” she replied.

“Alistair’s out of the room,” Tirzah said.  “You can head up and go to sleep now.”

“Thank the Maker,” Anora muttered as she dragged herself towards the steps.  “I can  _sleep_.”

“Make sure you do,” Tirzah called after her.  “You’ve had a hard few days and you could certainly use some rest.”

Anora turned, ready with a sharp reply before she realized that Tirzah spoke with genuine concern, not condescension.   “Thank you,” she murmured before heading up the steps, eager for a night of hard-earned sleep.


End file.
